CSS3's border-radius property and border-collapse:collapse don't mix. How can I use border-radius to create a collapsed table with rounded corners?

Question

Edit - Original Title: Is there an alternative way to achieve border-collapse:collapse in CSS (in order to have a collapsed, rounded corner table)?

Since it turns out that simply getting the table's borders to collapse does not solve the root problem, I have updated the title to better reflect the discussion.

I am trying to make a table with rounded corners using the CSS3 border-radius property. The table styles I'm using look something like this:

table {
    -moz-border-radius:10px;
    -webkit-border-radius:10px;
    border-radius:10px
}

Here's the problem. I also want to set the border-collapse:collapse property, and when that is set border-radius no longer works. Is there a CSS-based way I can get the same effect as border-collapse:collapse without actually using it?

Edits:

I've made a simple page to demonstrate the problem here (Firefox/Safari only).

It seems that a large part of the problem is that setting the table to have rounded corners does not affect the corners of the corner td elements. If the table was all one color, this wouldn't be a problem since I could just make the top and bottom td corners rounded for the first and last row respectively. However, I am using different background colors for the table to differentiate the headings and for striping, so the inner td elements would show their rounded corners as well.

Summary of proposed solutions:

Surrounding the table with another element with round corners doesn't work because the table's square corners "bleed through."

Specifying border width to 0 doesn't collapse the table.

Bottom td corners still square after setting cellspacing to zero.

Using JavaScript instead- works by avoiding the problem.

Possible solutions:

The tables are generated in PHP, so I could just apply a different class to each of the outer th/tds and style each corner separately. I'd rather not do this, since it's not very elegant and a bit of a pain to apply to multiple tables, so please keep suggestions coming.

Possible solution 2 is to use JavaScript (jQuery, specifically) to style the corners. This solution also works, but still not quite what I'm looking for (I know I'm picky). I have two reservations:

1. this is a very lightweight site, and I'd like to keep JavaScript to the barest minimum
2. part of the appeal that using border-radius has for me is graceful degradation and progressive enhancement. By using border-radius for all rounded corners, I hope to have a consistently rounded site in CSS3-capable browsers and a consistently square site in others (I'm looking at you, IE).

I know that trying to do this with CSS3 today may seem needless, but I have my reasons. I would also like to point out that this problem is a result of the w3c specification, not poor CSS3 support, so any solution will still be relevant and useful when CSS3 has more widespread support.

Answer 1

I figured it out. You just have to use some special selectors.

The problem with rounding the corners of the table was that the td elements didn't also become rounded. You can solve that by doing something like this:

table tr:last-child td:first-child {
    border-bottom-left-radius: 10px;
}

table tr:last-child td:last-child {
    border-bottom-right-radius: 10px;
}

Now everything rounds properly, except that there's still the issue of border-collapse: collapse breaking everything. A workaround is to set cellspacing="0" in the html instead (thanks, Joel).

Answer 2

The following method works (tested in Chrome) by using a box-shadow with a spread of 1px instead of a "real" border.

table {
    border-collapse: collapse;
    border-radius: 30px;
    border-style: hidden; /* hide standard table (collapsed) border */
    box-shadow: 0 0 0 1px #666; /* this draws the table border  */ 
}

td {
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
}

Answer 3

If you want a CSS-only solution (no need to set cellspacing=0 in the HTML) that allows for 1px borders (which you can't do with the border-spacing: 0 solution), I prefer to do the following:

• Set a border-right and border-bottom for your table cells (td and th)
• Give the cells in the first row a border-top
• Give the cells in the first column a border-left
• Using the first-child and last-child selectors, round the appropriate corners for the table cells in the four corners.

See a demo here.

Given the following HTML:

SEE example below:

   

 .custom-table{margin:30px;}
    table {
        border-collapse: separate;
        border-spacing: 0;
        min-width: 350px;
        
    }
    table tr th,
    table tr td {
        border-right: 1px solid #bbb;
        border-bottom: 1px solid #bbb;
        padding: 5px;
    }
    table tr th:first-child, table tr th:last-child{
    border-top:solid 1px      #bbb;}
    table tr th:first-child,
    table tr td:first-child {
        border-left: 1px solid #bbb;
        
    }
    table tr th:first-child,
    table tr td:first-child {
        border-left: 1px solid #bbb;
    }
    table tr th {
        background: #eee;
        text-align: left;
    }
    
    table.Info tr th,
    table.Info tr:first-child td
    {
        border-top: 1px solid #bbb;
    }
    
    /* top-left border-radius */
    table tr:first-child th:first-child,
    table.Info tr:first-child td:first-child {
        border-top-left-radius: 6px;
    }
    
    /* top-right border-radius */
    table tr:first-child th:last-child,
    table.Info tr:first-child td:last-child {
        border-top-right-radius: 6px;
    }
    
    /* bottom-left border-radius */
    table tr:last-child td:first-child {
        border-bottom-left-radius: 6px;
    }
    
    /* bottom-right border-radius */
    table tr:last-child td:last-child {
        border-bottom-right-radius: 6px;
    }
         

<div class="custom-table">
    <table>
        <tr>
            <th>item1</th>
            <th>item2</th>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>item1</td>
            <td>item2</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>item1</td>
            <td>item2</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>item1</td>
            <td>item2</td>
        </tr>
    </table>
</div>

Answer 4

Have you tried using table{border-spacing: 0} instead of table{border-collapse: collapse} ???

Answer 5

You'll probably have to put another element around the table and style that with a rounded border.

The working draft specifies that border-radius does not apply to table elements when the value of border-collapse is collapse.

Answer 6

As Ian said, the solution is to nest the table inside a div and set it like that:

.table_wrapper {
  border-radius: 5px;
  overflow: hidden;
}

With overflow:hidden, the square corners won't bleed through the div.

Answer 7

To the best of my knowledge, the only way you could do it would be to modify all the cells like so:

table td {
  border-right-width: 0px;
  border-bottom-width: 0px;
}

And then to get the border on the bottom and right back

table tr td:last-child {
  border-right-width: 1px;
}
table tr:last-child td {
  border-bottom-width: 1px;
}

:last-child is not valid in ie6, but if you are using border-radius I assume you don't care.

EDIT:

After looking at your example page, it appears that you may be able to work around this with cell spacing and padding.

The thick gray borders you are seeing are actually the background of the table (you can see this clearly if you change the border color to red). If you set the cellspacing to zero (or equivalently: td, th { margin:0; }) the grey "borders" will disappear.

EDIT 2:

I can't find a way to do this with only one table. If you change your header row to a nested table, you might possibly be able to get the effect you want, but it'll be more work, and not dynamic.

Answer 8

I tried a workaround using the pseudo elements :before and :after on the thead th:first-child and thead th:last-child

In combination with wrapping the table with a <div class="radius borderCCC">

table thead th:first-child:before{ 
    content:" ";
    position:absolute;
    top:-1px;
    left:-1px;
    width:15px;
    height:15px;
    border-left:1px solid #ccc;
    border-top:1px solid #ccc; 
    -webkit-border-radius:5px 0px 0px;
}
table thead th:last-child:after{ 
    content:" "; 
    position:absolute; 
    top:-1px;
    right:-1px; 
    width:15px;
    height:15px;
    border-right:1px solid #ccc;
    border-top:1px solid #ccc;
    -webkit-border-radius:0px 5px 0px 0px;
}

see jsFiddle

Works for me in chrome (13.0.782.215) Let me know if this works for you in other browsers.

Answer 9

I had the same problem. remove border-collapse entirely and use: cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" in the html document. example:

<table class="top_container" align="center" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">

Answer 10

Actually you can add your table inside a div as its wrapper. and then assign these CSS codes to wrapper:

.table-wrapper {
  border: 1px solid #f00;
  border-radius: 5px;
  overflow: hidden;
}

table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

Answer 11

The given answers only work when there are no borders around the table, which is very limiting!

I have a macro in SASS to do this, which fully supports external and internal borders, achieving the same styling as border-collapse: collapse without actually specifying it.

Tested in FF/IE8/Safari/Chrome.

Gives nice rounded borders in pure CSS in all browsers but IE8 (degrades gracefully) since IE8 doesn't support border-radius :(

Some older browsers may require vendor prefixes to work with border-radius, so feel free to add those prefixes to your code as necessary.

This answer is not the shortest - but it works.

.roundedTable {
  border-radius: 20px / 20px;
  border: 1px solid #333333;
  border-spacing: 0px;
}
.roundedTable th {
  padding: 4px;
  background: #ffcc11;
  border-left: 1px solid #333333;
}
.roundedTable th:first-child {
  border-left: none;
  border-top-left-radius: 20px;
}
.roundedTable th:last-child {
  border-top-right-radius: 20px;
}
.roundedTable tr td {
  border: 1px solid #333333;
  border-right: none;
  border-bottom: none;
  padding: 4px;
}
.roundedTable tr td:first-child {
  border-left: none;
}

To apply this style simply change your

<table>

tag to the following:

<table class="roundedTable">

and be sure to include the above CSS styles in your HTML.

Hope this helps.

Answer 12

For a bordered and scrollable table, use this (replace variables, $ starting texts)

If you use thead, tfoot or th, just replace tr:first-child and tr-last-child and td with them.

#table-wrap {
  border: $border solid $color-border;
  border-radius: $border-radius;
}
table {
  border-collapse: collapse;
  border-spacing: 0;
}
table td { border: $border solid $color-border; }
table td:first-child { border-left: none; }
table td:last-child { border-right: none; }
table tr:first-child td { border-top: none; }
table tr:last-child td { border-bottom: none; }
table tr:first-child td:first-child { border-top-left-radius: $border-radius; }
table tr:first-child td:last-child { border-top-right-radius: $border-radius; }
table tr:last-child td:first-child { border-bottom-left-radius: $border-radius; }
table tr:last-child td:last-child { border-bottom-right-radius: $border-radius; }

HTML:

<div id=table-wrap>
  <table>
    <tr>
       <td>1</td>
       <td>2</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
       <td>3</td>
       <td>4</td>
    </tr>
  </table>
</div>

Answer 13

I just wrote a crazy set of CSS for this that seems to work perfectly:

table {
  border-collapse: separate;
  border-spacing: 0;
  width: 100%;
}
table td,
table th {
  border-right: 1px solid #CCC;
  border-top: 1px solid #CCC;
  padding: 3px 5px;
  vertical-align: top;
}
table td:first-child,
table th:first-child {
  border-left: 1px solid #CCC;
}
table tr:last-child td,
table tr:last-child th {
  border-bottom: 1px solid #CCC;
}
table thead + tbody tr:first-child td {
  border-top: 0;
}
table thead td,
table th {
  background: #EDEDED;
}

/* complicated rounded table corners! */
table thead:first-child tr:last-child td:first-child {
  border-bottom-left-radius: 0;
}
table thead:first-child tr:last-child td:last-child {
  border-bottom-right-radius: 0;
}
table thead + tbody tr:first-child td:first-child {
  border-top-left-radius: 0;
}
table thead + tbody tr:first-child td:last-child {
  border-top-right-radius: 0;
}
table tr:first-child td:first-child,
table thead tr:first-child td:first-child {
  border-top-left-radius: 5px;
}
table tr:first-child td:last-child,
table thead tr:first-child td:last-child {
  border-top-right-radius: 5px;
}
table tr:last-child td:first-child,
table thead:last-child tr:last-child td:first-child {
  border-bottom-left-radius: 5px;
}
table tr:last-child td:last-child,
table thead:last-child tr:last-child td:last-child {
  border-bottom-right-radius: 5px;
}

/* end complicated rounded table corners !*/

Answer 14

Solution with border-collapse:separate for table and display:inline-table for tbody and thead.

table {
  width: 100%;
  border-collapse: separate;
  border-spacing: 0px;
  background: transparent;   
}
table thead {
  display: inline-table;
  width: 100%;
  background: #fc0 url(../images/bg-heading.png) repeat-x 0% 0;
  -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 7px;
  -moz-border-radius-topleft: 7px;
  -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 7px;
  -moz-border-radius-topright: 7px;
    border-radius: 7px 7px 0px 0px;
  padding: 1px;
  padding-bottom: 0;
}

table tbody {
  border: 1px solid #ddd;
  display: inline-table;
  width: 100%;
  border-top: none;        
}

Answer 15

I am new with HTML and CSS and I was also looking for solution for this, here what I find.

table,th,td {
   border: 1px solid black;
   border-spacing: 0
}
/* add border-radius to table only*/
table {
   border-radius: 25px    
}
/* then add border-radius to top left border of left heading cell */
th:first-child {
   border-radius: 25px 0 0 0
}
/* then add border-radius to top right border of right heading cell */
th:last-child {
   border-radius: 0 25px 0 0
}
/* then add border-radius to bottom left border of left cell of last row */
tr:last-child td:first-child {
   border-radius: 0 0 0 25px
}
/* then add border-radius to bottom right border of right cell of last row */
tr:last-child td:last-child {
   border-radius: 0 0 25px 0
}

I try it, guess what it works :)

Answer 16

Found this answer after running into the same problem, but found it's pretty simple: just give the table overflow:hidden

No need for a wrapping element. Granted, I don't know if this would have worked 7 years ago when the question was initially asked, but it works now.

Answer 17

Table with rounded corners and with bordered cells. Using @Ramon Tayag solution.

The key is to use border-spacing: 0 as he points out.

Solution using SCSS.

$line: 1px solid #979797;
$radius: 5px;

table {
  border: $line;
  border-radius: $radius;
  border-spacing: 0;
  th,
  tr:not(:last-child) td {
    border-bottom: $line;
  }
  th:not(:last-child),
  td:not(:last-child) {
    border-right: $line;
  }
}

Answer 18

I started experiment with "display" and I found that: border-radius, border, margin, padding, in a table are displayed with:

display: inline-table;

For example

table tbody tr {
  display: inline-table;
  width: 960px; 
  -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
  -moz-border-radius: 5px;
  border-radius: 5px;
}

But we need set a width of every column

tr td.first-column {
  width: 100px;
}
tr td.second-column {
  width: 860px;
}

Answer 19

Here is a recent example of how to implement a table with rounded-corners from http://medialoot.com/preview/css-ui-kit/demo.html. It's based on the special selectors suggested by Joel Potter above. As you can see, it also includes some magic to make IE a little happy. It includes some extra styles to alternate the color of the rows:

table-wrapper {
  width: 460px;
  background: #E0E0E0;
  filter: progid: DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#E9E9E9', endColorstr='#D7D7D7');
  background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#E9E9E9), to(#D7D7D7));
  background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #E9E9E9, #D7D7D7);
  padding: 8px;
  -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0px 2px 2px #B2B3B5, 0px 1px 0 #fff;
  -moz-box-shadow: inset 0px 2px 2px #B2B3B5, 0px 1px 0 #fff;
  -o-box-shadow: inset 0px 2px 2px #B2B3B5, 0px 1px 0 #fff;
  -khtml-box-shadow: inset 0px 2px 2px #B2B3B5, 0px 1px 0 #fff;
  box-shadow: inset 0px 2px 2px #B2B3B5, 0px 1px 0 #fff;
  -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
  /*-moz-border-radius: 10px; firefox doesn't allow rounding of tables yet*/
  -o-border-radius: 10px;
  -khtml-border-radius: 10px;
  border-radius: 10px;
  margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.table-wrapper table {
  width: 460px;
}
.table-header {
  height: 35px;
  font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-size: 14px;
  text-align: center;
  line-height: 34px;
  text-decoration: none;
  font-weight: bold;
}
.table-row td {
  font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-size: 14px;
  text-align: left;
  text-decoration: none;
  font-weight: normal;
  color: #858585;
  padding: 10px;
  border-left: 1px solid #ccc;
  -khtml-box-shadow: 0px 1px 0px #B2B3B5;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0px 1px 0px #B2B3B5;
  -moz-box-shadow: 0px 1px 0px #ddd;
  -o-box-shadow: 0px 1px 0px #B2B3B5;
  box-shadow: 0px 1px 0px #B2B3B5;
}
tr th {
  border-left: 1px solid #ccc;
}
tr th:first-child {
 -khtml-border-top-left-radius: 8px;
  -webkit-border-top-left-radius: 8px;
  -o-border-top-left-radius: 8px;
  /*-moz-border-radius-topleft: 8px; firefox doesn't allow rounding of tables yet*/
  border-top-left-radius: 8px;
  border: none;
}
tr td:first-child {
  border: none;
}
tr th:last-child {
  -khtml-border-top-right-radius: 8px;
  -webkit-border-top-right-radius: 8px;
  -o-border-top-right-radius: 8px;
  /*-moz-border-radius-topright: 8px; firefox doesn't allow rounding of tables yet*/
  border-top-right-radius: 8px;
}
tr {
  background: #fff;
}
tr:nth-child(odd) {
  background: #F3F3F3;
}
tr:nth-child(even) {
  background: #fff;
}
tr:last-child td:first-child {
  -khtml-border-bottom-left-radius: 8px;
  -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius: 8px;
  -o-border-bottom-left-radius: 8px;
  /*-moz-border-radius-bottomleft: 8px; firefox doesn't allow rounding of tables yet*/
  border-bottom-left-radius: 8px;
}
tr:last-child td:last-child {
  -khtml-border-bottom-right-radius: 8px;
  -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius: 8px;
  -o-border-bottom-right-radius: 8px;
  /*-moz-border-radius-bottomright: 8px; firefox doesn't allow rounding of tables yet*/
  border-bottom-right-radius: 8px;
}

Answer 20

I always do this way using Sass

table {
  border-radius: 0.25rem;
  thead tr:first-child th {
    &:first-child {
      border-top-left-radius: 0.25rem;
    }
    &:last-child {
      border-top-right-radius: 0.25rem;
    }
  }
  tbody tr:last-child td {
    &:first-child {
      border-bottom-left-radius: 0.25rem;
    }
    &:last-child {
      border-bottom-right-radius: 0.25rem;
    }
  }
}

Answer 21

Border-radius is now officially supported. So, in all of the above examples you may drop the "-moz-" prefix.

Another trick is to use the same color for the top and bottom rows as is your border. With all 3 colors the same, it blends in and looks like a perfectly rounded table even though it isn't physically.